


Catherine's Story

by I_can_only_imagine



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, F/M, Gen, Good Parent Catherine Todd, Implied Overdose, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Underage Relationship(s), Kinda?, Platonic Soulmates, Suicidal Thoughts, also kinda - Freeform, catherine is jason's only valid parent, i dont know what this is, no beta we die like jason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24302227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_can_only_imagine/pseuds/I_can_only_imagine
Summary: Catherine Johnson's world changed when Jason was born.
Relationships: (minor) Catherine Todd/Willis Todd, Catherine Todd & Bruce Wayne, Catherine Todd & Jason Todd, Catherine Todd & Sheila Haywood
Comments: 1
Kudos: 65





	Catherine's Story

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know what this is, I just got random inspiration and wrote when I should be sleeping and studying for my last test tomorrow. Please mind the tags.

Catherine took a deep breath and held it. She was afraid that if she let it out, she wouldn’t be able to draw another in as she stared at the bloody, gut wrenching scene in front of her.

Sheila was a doctor, or at least almost finished training to become one. If she were able, Catherine knew Sheila would have slapped some sense into these doctors to clean up during the birth and handle her more carefully.

But Sheila couldn’t do that right now. She was too busy screaming, and practically breaking Catherine and Willis’s hands with every push.

Catherine distantly wished she had begged for her parents’ forgiveness. Wished she had convinced them to pay for her and Willis to take Sheila to Gotham Central instead of a free clinic in the Narrows.

But she hadn't. And now they risked losing the baby because of it.

She cursed herself and let her breath out as soon as the contraction was over and Sheila loosened her grip. She allowed herself to breath a few moments and petted back some of Sheila’s sweat drench hair from her face before the next contraction started.

How much time had passed since they started this? There were no windows or clocks in the room, and Willis’s watch that he still insisted on wearing had stopped working months ago, so she had no way of knowing. It felt like an eternity, but for all she knew about the intricacies of child birth, it had only been an hour.

“Catherine,” Sheila pant after another round of screaming and bone crushing pain in her hand ended. She glanced up at Catherine with desperate and tired eyes.

“I’m here Sheila,” Catherine promised. Even after everything that had transpired between the two women, the mess Willis had created, Catherine knew she loved the woman she held the hand of. She was the closest she had to a friend she had ever had, even though she knew Sheila hated her more than anything in the world. Correction, maybe she hated Willis more, but definitely not by much.

“I need you to take it,” Sheila said, her face starting to contort in pain again.

“Take what?” Catherine asked quickly, hoping to get the words out of her before the screaming started again.

“It! The baby you stupid girl!” Shelia shouted, her back raising off the table as she squeezed her eyes shut. “The baby and Willis. They’re your fucking problem now.”

“I can’t take your baby,” Catherine said, looking up at Willis in panic. He wasn’t even paying attention. The bastard wasn’t even looking at them. He didn’t even give an indication that he could feel the pain Catherine felt every time Sheila squeezed down on them.

“Not my baby,” Shelia managed. “Your baby. It’s your fucking baby, and Willis is your fucking man. I’m done with this. I’m done with all of you.”

“And where will you go?” Willis asked boardly, tuning into the conversation.

“I’ll live with a friend,” Sheila shook her head. “I can’t stand another minute in that apartment. I can’t stand another minute with you.”

“Whatever,” the man huffed, looking back off to the crappy box television he had been watching.

Catherine looked between the man and woman in panic. She was seventeen, by all ethical and legal logic, she shouldn’t be here with the two adults. She should be home, back in Mantoloking in her parents’ exceptionally large home, studying for the start of her Junior year at the top preparatory school in the state. Instead she was here, in the Narrows of Gotham, in a free health clinic with an older man she had gotten involved with and his ex fiancee who wanted her dead.

She was cut off, disowned, and had no future. No future beyond what Willis would provide her with and what Shelia was merciful enough to give her.

So she accepted her fate and didn’t fight back another word to Shelia’s decision. If Sheila said she was going to be the mother of her child, she was going to damn well be the mother of her child. She had no say in her life anymore, and she fully let the blame fall on herself.

For the rest of the birth she stared emptily at Sheila. She wondered how her lives had gone off the rails, how she had become Sheila’s exact opposite.

Sheila Haywood was Gotham born and bred. She was born with nothing, and was set out to die with nothing. She was really your classic dumb blonde you saw in bad movies. Truly below her, but only in the academic sense. Somehow, she had managed to claw her way into med school, and forged a path for herself that she would never have gotten in any other world.

Catherine Johnson was Gotham born too, but not raised. She was born with nothing, but was set out to die with everything. When she was seven, her father had struck gold and her family became one of the wealthiest in Gotham, right up there with the Waynes. They had run off to live in the most expensive city in New Jersey, and there she was raised with the best schooling money could buy. She was a natural genius, and her teachers and parents alike agreed that even if she had been raised in the Narrows still, in Gotham’s crappy public school system, she still would have had a bright future ahead of her.

Her life had gone wrong somewhere, and she could pinpoint it to the minute.

May 25th earlier that year, at 6:23 p.m. Catherine had been dumb enough to walk around in the Narrows unarmed and with her guard down. She had decided to visit the home of her early childhood in a burst of nostalgia. A man had tried to mug her, and Willis had come to her rescue. Willis Todd, who had been seventeen when Catherine moved away from the next door apartment and somehow had recognized her as the little girl he used to babysit.

One thing had led to another, and Catherine found herself in a relationship with the man. Willis’s fiance who Catherine hadn’t known about fount out. Then her parents found out. The next thing she knew, she was living on Willis’s couch while his pregnant ex fiancee made every second of her life a living hell.

When Sheila hadn’t been torturing Catherine's mind, the two had actually gotten along to an extent. They had similar taste in men that they could bond over, after all. So Catherine wrote off every bit of her daily pain as what she deserved and took every split second of kindness as undeserved mercy.

She was pulled back into the present by the sound of the doctor starting to announce the baby’s gender.

“Stop,” Shelia ordered through her exhaustion. The doctor, who Catherine wasn’t even sure was a real licensed doctor, obeyed.

“I don't want to know the baby’s gender,” she said. “I don’t want to know their name. I don’t want anything to do with them. Just hand me the birth certificate and I’ll sign my name. Once I do, though, I want you all out of this room, and I never want to see the baby again.”

“Yes ma’am,” the doctor complied. As ordered, as soon as Sheila signed the birth certificate, everyone besides the nurse caring for her were ushered out of the room.

The baby was cleaned, given its shots, and handed off to Catherine unceremoniously.

What ever uncertainties she had had, what ever thought that this was her punishment for her stupid decisions were quickly washed away as she stared down at the baby. If soulmates had existed, she knew her other half would have been this child. This baby was what her life was meant for, and everything she had forfeited became completely worth it just to hold them safely in her arms.

“It’s a boy,” the doctor informed her. Or maybe he was talking to Willis. She couldn’t care less. The gender of the baby didn’t matter to her, just that they were there.

“Cathy, you can name him,” Willis said, his voice oddly soft. He must have noticed her love struck expression just like everyone else in the clinic hallway.

“Jason,” she whispered.

“As in my father?” Willis asked, a slight annoyance entering his voice.

She shook her head, “As in healer, curer.”

“I don’t think I understand,” Willis said, but the annoyance disappeared.

“It’s Greek,” she informed him, never taking her eyes away from the baby. “Jason. It means curer, or healer.”

“There you go showing off that fancy schooling again,” Willis said fondly.

Catherine smiled for the first time in a long time and kissed the baby’s head. His little hand reached up and took hold of one of her curls, and she kept her head dipped so he could continue to hold it.

“Will you be giving him a middle name?” the doctor asked.

“Willis maybe?” Catherine finally glanced over.

Willis laughed and waved a hand like it was the funniest thing he’d heard all day, “Since Cathy went all biblical with his first name, just put down Peter for his middle.”

The doctor must have nodded because Catherine heard no reply. It wasn’t like she cared either way. She had her Jason, and everything was okay.

Willis wasn’t a perfect husband. Hell, he wasn’t even a good one. Deep down though, Catherine knew he still loved her and Jason, and that was probably all that kept her there with him.

It wasn’t like she could leave even if she wanted to. Her parents had been killed, blown up in a show of glory by a Gotham Rogue along with several other well off families. Willis’s father was dead, and his mother and siblings never answered any of her calls. She was stuck in every way there was.

Jason was four and had already lived through so much Catherine wished she could shield him from. Every night, curled up in his tiny bed with him, she would cry herself to sleep and wish a better life for her baby.

Some nights she would let her imagination take her away to other worlds, none of which she didn’t have Jason in. She dreamed of them getting away from Willis. She dreamed of Willis being himself again. And some nights, the darkest nights, she wished she had made up with her parents, gone home, and died with them and Jason in the explosion.

The night before had been one of those darker nights.

She was dead on her feet as she trudged through the soup kitchen line with Jason’s tiny hand held in hers. He was walking better than a normal toddler should be, running and climbing and hiding even better. There were no clumsy missteps or accidents. He had found his center of gravity at two and never let it slip, always kept two feet planted firmly on the ground.

Despite the rough night before, the morning had actually been very good. Willis hadn’t been home when Jason had woken her up. She had sat up in the bed, and the four year old had grinned his toothy grin while placing a chipped plate on her lap that held two stale pop tarts on it.

“Breakfast in bed,” he had told her with pride.

The morning had only gotten better from there, with Jason brushing her hair and braiding it back like he had seen a girl in a picture book do the last time they were at the public library with surprising accuracy and lack of tangles. She hadn’t had the heart to redo it herself. Sparky hadn’t had an accident, and Jason had brushed his teeth and gotten dressed into something besides pajamas without his usual pout. In fact, he had done it all without even asking.

It was days like these that made her think back to her thought from the day Jason was born. That if there was an other half of her soul, a soulmate, it was Jason. He could always sense when she was upset, and always immediately tried to make her feel better, and she was able to do the same with him.

So even though she was barely awake as she walked through the line, she wore a smile.

That all came crashing down when a voice called her name across the table, where a volunteer was serving a bowl of soup to give to her and Jason.

“Catherine?”

She looked up and was met by blue eyes, pale skin, black hair and a worried expression. She recognized the combination of angular features and the deep, smooth voice.

“Bruce,” she managed, blinking in shock. “What are you doing here?”

“I should be asking you the same thing,” he said, shaking his head. “Cathy, I thought you were dead.”

That’s right. Her disownment had never been publicly released.

“Well, as you can see, I’m not,” she regained her composure and controlled her expression. “You’re working in the soup kitchen? I wouldn’t expect you to get down in the dirt.”

“I wanted to show my charge what one of our charities looked like,” he explained.

“I’d expect better quality from a Wayne charity,” she said.

“As would I,” Bruce smiled with a bit of sadness. She knew it was just for show. Bruce had been like a distant, much older cousin to her at one point in time. She knew how emotionally unavailable the man really was first hand.

“You never answered my question. What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Unlike you well offs, people like me live on this food,” she bit out. “I’m here to feed my son.”

Bruce’s eyes were drawn down to Jason, who gave a shy wave before disappearing behind Catherine and hugging her arm. Recognition dawned on his face, and Catherine was sure he had built some sort of story about an affair of sorts in his narrow mind.

“The soup,” she said impatiently. “I don’t have all day.”

“Of course,” Bruce said, looking back down to serve up a bowl slightly more filled than others. If she noticed, Catherine didn’t say a word about it.

“Thank you,” she said, taking the bowl and turning away without another word.

Catherine sat down at a crowded table with Jason in her lap and shared the bowl of soup with him. She would call it sharing to Jason, at least, when really she only let herself have a spoon full and a half like usual.

Unlike most days, though, Jason seemed to notice her not eating as much as him, and refused to eat another bite until she caught up with him. She would never let him see the guilty, shame full tears that wheeled in her eyes as she did. He was smart, so so smart and so so stubborn. If she hadn't known better, she would think she really had given birth to him herself.

Sheila was a distant memory now, barely a faint whisper in the back of Catherine's mind from time to time. She only showed up in her thoughts when Willis mentioned her, but Jason wasn’t anything like her. Hell, Jason didn't look anything like her, and really didn’t look much like Willis either. After seeing his face again, Catherine distantly thought that Jason actually more closely resembled a combination of her and Bruce. Which was impossible, of course, but still so obvious and odd that she couldn’t help but wonder after it.

“Mommy,” Jason got her attention. His face was grim, too grim for a four year old, and too worried. He reached up with his too tiny hands and cupped her face the same way he did when he was trying to comfort her when she cried.

“I’m okay baby,” she assured. “I’m all caught up now, so you eat now.”

He hesitated but nodded, finishing off the bowl of soup quickly. He didn’t like crowds, never had even as an infant, and Catherine was sure he was antsy to get to the library.

“Catherine,” a voice called to stop her as she walked down the sidewalk, Jason held her arms on her hip.

She turned just in time to see Bruce running down the crowded sidewalk to catch up with her. He stopped in front of her, not taking a second to catch his breath before presenting a sucker to Jason.

“My charge- my son,” he corrected. “Wanted you to have this.”

Jason looked up at her with wide eyes and curious tilt. It was so rare that he got candy, and she could see how much he wanted to take it, but she had also taught him like any reasonable parent to never take candy from strangers.

Catherine nodded and smiled at the way his face lit up. He took the blue batman sucker from Bruce with a bashful smile and a whispered ‘thank you’ before burying his face in her shoulder.

“Thank you Bruce,” she said, kissing her son’s temple. “Tell you son thank you too.”

“I will,” Bruce said. “And Catherine, I know we didn’t really know each other well, but it was nice to see you.”

“It was nice to see you too Bruce,” she said.

She walked the rest of the way to the library with a smile and an odd feeling. Bruce had been the first encounter she’d had with her past since Jason was born. She couldn’t help but realize he would most likely be her last too.

When Catherine's life came to its end at only twenty six years of age, she only found herself regretting one thing.

She regretted not getting to be there to watch Jason grow, and her vice that had caused it.

As she drifted off into the abyss with Jason sobbing violently, hugging onto her and screaming at the 911 operator to actually get someone to their apartment for once, she used the last of her strength to hold him. She held him, through his thrashing, and crying, and begging for her to stay strong until the paramedics got there, and smiled.

People say your life flashes before your eyes when you die, but that didn’t happen to her. Instead, her mind presented her with two days. The day Jason was born, and the day she saw Bruce Wayne at the soup kitchen.

The world was telling her something. She knew it was. And she listened, and smiled even more when she understood. She wished for Bruce to take care of her son, and managed one last ‘I love you’ before she was gone.

Maybe it wasn’t the flashest, or happiest way to die. She should have asked for more time, or for a better way. But she let it happen, because the universe was telling her, Jason would be okay.

Off in the abyss, sometimes she would hear Jason cry. Even though the only sense she had was her hearing, Catherine liked to think he could feel her holding him. Holding his soul close as she soothed him the best she could.

In the abyss, she heard this one day: 

“She would be ashamed if she could see me now.”

Jason’s voice was so much older now, so much more mature. She held his soul close, and kissed his temple.

“I could never be ashamed of you baby,” she promised.

“Mom?”

Then the abyss disappeared, and she had completed her last task on earth. She stood in front of pearly gates, and let the warmth fill her, finally letting go.

“It’s about time,” Shelia’s voice said. She looked beside her to the blonde, who seemed tired and guilty.

“I asked them to let me wait until you got here before they sent me down,” Sheila said. “Took you long enough.”

“I had to make sure he was okay,” Catherine said.

“He is,” Sheila nodded. “I saw him, once. We were lucky he was left with you, I would have made a terrible mother.”

Catherine didn't ask what Sheila had done. She could tell from the woman’s expression that she didn't want to know.

“He ended up a good kid,” Sheila nodded. “You did good, Catherine. Bruce is trying to do his best, but just like me and Willis, he doesn’t have the effortless caring that you did.”

“They’ll be fine,” Catherine said.

“Yeah, they will be,” Sheila agreed.


End file.
